You Might Like Hockey If…

May 9, 2011

Hockey is the world’s greatest sport. It’s fast, it’s smart, and it’s brutal. It’s the only game that combines the speed and grace of basketball with the rough attack of football, the strategy of baseball with the delicate beauty of figure skating. There are also elements of mixed martial arts fighting, billiards and sex. It’s our national sport here, but for many of you foreigners, it’s a mystery. And you probably think it’s kind of stupid, usually while you’re eating weird food and talking funny. “Hockey? That’s dumb,” you might say. But you wouldn’t think so if …

… You knew there was a team in the SPHL called the Augusta Riverhawks, and they play in the James Brown Arena in Augusta, Georgia. If you have to show up to play hockey in an arena named after the Godfather of Soul, you are going to rock the house, and you’re going to Feel Good. Plus, their uniforms include capes.

… Plans for the new Lingerie Hockey League bear fruit; arena deals have been secured, and TV rights are in place, but some of the guys are having trouble learning to bodycheck in the uniforms.

… You watch Slap Shot (1977), starring Paul Newman and Michael Ontkean and the Hanson Brothers, and you managed to forget that there was a sequel starring the Baldwin brother who looks like the bastard son of Brad Pitt and a chimp.

… You knew there was an Irish professional hockey league. In Ireland. The puck is green, and you know what’s in the goalie’s water bottle.

… You knew there is a team in the new Federal League called the Thousand Islands Privateers, which is, coincidentally, the name of an adult film about people who like to incorporate salad dressing into their love lives.

… You knew that when Rocket Richard scored his 325th goal in 1952, the puck was presented to Queen Elizabeth II and was later incorporated into that big crown thing she wears when she knights movie stars and singers. She likes to rub it for luck whenever a male heir picks a bride.

… You knew there’s a Jamaican Hockey League. Okay, no, I made that up. But all this other stuff is true.

I hear you, I’d rather have/like to get one of the blue/yellow Sabres jerseys. It was one of those “money burning a hole in my pocket” situations at the Mall of America up in Minneapolis. Actually, the hockey jerseys I have that I most like are from the local high school team.